Liz suggests that they call Jane for help, having to finally tell Cia about Jane being in town for the trial. Liz explains that she kept the information from her sister during the time of the moon when she is most powerful but sometimes unstable. Liz says Evelyn is their responsibility, but the vampire is Jane’s. Cia then says that, really, stopping Evangelina was their responsibility, but they passed it to Jane, who did her duty.
After making sure the hedge spell is in place and very strong, Liz and Cia call Jane from the car. Jane says she will be there as quickly as she can be. While Liz is talking to her, Cia looks up more information about the area, especially curious since the magic of both women had been so much stronger there than it should have been, learning that the place was the site of a town where everyone disappeared in 1890. An old picture from the time period shows a woman who looks like the vampire they contained. Jane tells the witches to stay put.
Jane arrives with several vampires, including Lincoln Shaddock and Dacy, his heir, and reports that the sisters stumbled upon something the vamps want to keep quiet—the female vampire, Romona, never came out of the devoveo, and since her husband couldn’t bring himself to have her killed, she escaped and killed everyone in the town. Unfortunately Romona also used blood-magic, being a witch vampire, and the two sisters know that they need to get cleansed and purified soon, since they used some of the that magic unknowingly.
The vamps have agreed that Romona faces true-death at Jane’s hand, and they will pay a steep fee to the sisters if they do not talk about the secret of the town. Liz and Cia agree, as long as Evelyn survives. Romona’s husband distracts her with shoes, and when Cia brings down the hedge, Jane kills the rogue vampire. Dacy gives Evelyn enough blood to ensure that she will survive, and the sisters give their word they will not speak of the town unless someone else’s life is in danger, or the vampires tell them they can talk about it. Jane tells Lincoln to pay the sisters, and when they get to the car they find one hundred thousand dollars in the envelope.
After returning Evelyn to her daughter, Liz and Cia head home. Cia tells Liz that when Evangelina threw the boulder on her, she was unable to move it and that Jane, in her cat form, was the one who did. The two women agree it is time to forgive Jane. They also agree that they really need to get cleansed of that addictive blood-magic.
Beneath a Bloody Moon
A Jane Yellowrock Novella
By Faith Hunter
Faith’s Note: This novella takes place (in the Jane Yellowrock timeline) after Blood Trade, after the short “The Devil’s Left Boot” in the anthology Kicking It and before Black Arts. It takes place over two days, in February, before Mardi Gras.
“Jane.”
I turned to the side and pulled the cell closer to my ear so my partners couldn’t see the stupid smile on my face. Deep inside, my Beast rolled to her paws, gathered them tight beneath her, and started to purr. I could hear her response in the tone of my voice when I drawled, “Ricky Bo LaFleur, as I live and breathe.”
He chuckled. “You’ve been in New Orleans too long if you’re picking up the lingo and the accent.”
Too long without you. But I didn’t say it. I was getting smarter. Finally. Our jobs and his little problem meant stealing moments when we could, and none of them were particularly satisfying. Rick is a special agent with PsyLED, the Psychometery Law Enforcement Department of Homeland Security, and so some things he can’t share. His job takes him all over the Southeast. My job means traveling too, hunting and killing rogue-vampires or keeping the secrets of the sane ones, so ditto on the not sharing. It puts a barrier between us.
The relationship—if I could call it that—with Rick was still wobbly: bruised by miscommunication, stupid accusations, big-cat pheromones, and worse, the tattoo spells that kept my werecat sorta-boyfriend in human form. Oh. And the were-taint that was said to be communicable by, um, having fun. Okay, maybe “relationship” was too strong a word nowadays. I pulled my hip-length hair across my shoulder as I walked out the side door and onto the porch. “So, where are you?”
“Too far for a meet and greet. I hope to get your way soon and make up for lost time, if you still have room for me with all the new men in your life.”
“New men?” Incredulity laced the word.
“The Younger brothers?”
I’m not the most man-savvy gal in town, but even I detected the hint of jealousy in his tone. “Partners, Ricky Bo. Not hanky-panky.”
“Good.” His voice dropped into the big-cat-purr register, more vibration than note. “I was kinda hoping you’d save all the hanky and the panky for me.”
“I was leaning that way. But for that to work, we need to cross paths sometime. You suck at the boyfriend stuff almost as much as I suck at the girlfriend stuff.”
“Soon,” he promised, “we’ll remedy that. But meanwhile, would you be interested in a side job for Uncle Sam?”
I sat on the edge of the porch, my legs in the weak March sun, feet in the lemon thyme ground cover. The smell wafted up from my feet and tickled my nose. “PsyLED?” The arm of the government that employed Rick seemed more likely to want me on a dissection table than on their payroll. Of course, maybe not. They had hired Rick. “Do they know . . .” About me? Not said aloud.
“That I’m dating a statuesque Cherokee? I told them all about us. They’re good with it.”
The subtle emphasis on statuesque Cherokee told me that he was keeping my secret. Not that my being a skinwalker would be secret for long. Not now that I had been outted to the paranormal world in such a spectacular way—by changing to one of my animal forms in the back of a car—in front of numerous people, including the vampire Master of the City of New Orleans, Leo Pellissier. It was the only thing that had saved my life. But yeah. My anonymity wouldn’t last long. “Why don’t you do it, what’s the job, how dangerous, and how much?”
“You don’t have to sound so suspicious,” he chuckled, “because this one is boring and the pay sucks.”
“Oh, well, as long it’s all that.”
“And more, Jane. Seriously, though, there have been a number of wild dog attacks west and south of you.” His tone changed and I couldn’t tell at first why. “They’ve been going on for four months with increasing severity. All on the full moon. All the victims died. Eaten.”
Werewolf, I thought, feeling all the joy leach out of me. I had helped decimate the pack of werewolves that had invaded Louisiana, killing almost the entire pack to save Rick from them. Instantly I remembered the sound of gunfire, the sight of wolves falling and dying, their howls and screams of fury and pain.
My team and I had saved Rick, but he’d nearly died. And saving him had left him scars, not the least of which were the spelled tattoos the alpha wolf-bitch had tried to eat from his arm and shoulder. She had mangled the tattoos badly, and messed up the magic spelled into them, which now kept him from turning into his werecat black leopard form on the full moon. He had been tortured. Raped. Abused beyond sanity, yet he had survived. Rick was tougher than nails, which was not something I had expected when I met the pretty boy on my first day in New Orleans.
His tone in the safety zone of cop-speak, he went on. “The attacks started in Alexandria, and at first seemed to follow a trail leading south, along I-49.” The location and trail indicated that there could be a connection between the decimated werewolf pack and the pack of so-called wild dogs. Wild dogs didn’t follow highways. Werewolves might. “Recently the attacks have been centered near Chauvin, which is two hours from New Orleans and south of Houma. And I’m stuck farther north for the next few days.”